Carter County Bank to open new branch; expands loan department

Photo by Rick Harris Carolyn Davis will be the branch manager of Mountain Community Bank, Linville, N.C., where Carter County Bank plans to open its newest branch in May.

By Greg Miller
STAR STAFF
gmiller@starhq.com

   Carter County Bank will open a new branch, Mountain Community Bank, in Linville N.C., in May.
   Carolyn Davis will be the branch manager of Mountain Community Bank. "She has 24 years of banking experience, and we are very lucky to have her on our team," said David Mahaffey, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "She was born and raised in Banner Elk and knows the area and the community's needs very well.
   "As Vice President, she will be the officer in charge with primary responsibilities of lending and business development in the market area. Mountain Community Bank will operate with a branch operations manager who will be responsible for the everyday operational matters of supervising tellers and new accounts platform, three tellers, a customer service representative and an additional consumer lender.
   "Preliminary discussions and planning for opening the branch go back several years. We have looked at different opportunities to have a brick-and-mortar presence in Western North Carolina, including acquiring existing banks, starting a new bank or branching. In mid-year of 2003, we decided the best choice was to branch into North Carolina and selected Avery County as the location. We are excited about the opportunities that our expansion into North Carolina will provide and look forward to the challenge."
   "Mountain Community Bank is a branch of Carter County Bank just like any of our other locations," said Rebecca White, the bank's marketing director. "Customers will be able to have all their banking needs met at that branch just as they could at our main branch or the Roan Mountain branch.
   "It will be a great resource for our customers who might be traveling to the Boone area and find themselves needing to get their account balance or depositing money into their checking account.
   "And the same will be true for residents in Avery County who are visiting in the Elizabethton area." Mountain Community Bank customers may go to the Web site www.communitybank.com. Carter County Bank's Web site will still be cartercountybank.com.
   Carter County Bank, Mahaffey said, will continue to look at opportunities to expand its market. "There are no definite plans or timeline to expand further at this time, either through acquisition or branching."
   With the hiring of additional loan officers, Carter County Bank is expanding its loan department. "We are positioning the bank to be able to offer more products and services that our customers have a need for," Mahaffey said.
   "Having qualified and knowledgeable loan officers is one part of that equation. We have just hired a new commercial lender, John Odom, who has 10 years experience in the market. He joined us on Feb. 9 and will be responsible for new business development, and will be the commercial relationship manager for Carter, Washington, Johnson and Sullivan County. John will be focusing on the new construction and land development market, working with some of the well-known builders in the area.
   "In addition, we will be hiring another consumer lender who will work out of the main office in Elizabethton. We will also be hiring a mortgage specialist who will be responsible for establishing a secondary market mortgage program. For a number of years, we have portfolioed all of our mortgage loans and feel that to be more competitive in the market we need to offer a larger variety of mortgage products. By offering Secondary market mortgage products, we will be able to be more price competitive and better meet our customers' expectations and needs.
   "Carter County Bank feels that there are significant opportunities in the four-county area to expand our customer base and grow the bank both through deposit acquisition and loans. We simply want to broaden our defined market area into the contiguous counties. To accomplish this, we need additional, experienced lenders and business development personnel to reach those goals. We have set an aggressive budget this year to grow our loans 12 percent and grow the bank's assets by some 13 percent."
   Carter County Bank is now offering a new free checking account, "No Strings Checking." "It truly is a free checking account that has no strings attached to it," White said. "There are no restrictions for ATM usage, teller visits, or the amount of checks you write. Customers will get a debit card, Home Banking (our online banking product), and No Bounce protection up to $500 after the first 30 days for free. And we offer this account to everyone -- not just senior citizens or students."
   The bank is in the process of redesigning and redeveloping its Web site. "We are going to have that go live the same time that our new branch opens, so we're looking at the very beginning of May for that to launch also," White said.
   Many new features are being added to the Web site, according to White. "We're adding a lot of new features to it," she said. "Home banking and our Web bill pay will be the same and will look the same. That way, it won't confuse the customers. The rest of it is what will be different, updated and a little newer."
   The bank's Web address -- cartercountybank.com -- will remain the same. When Mountain Community Bank opens, customers will be able to visit mountaincommunitybank.com, which will feed into cartercountybank.com.
   "Besides introducing competitive products and services such as our Money Market account, our biggest accomplishment is the fact that the leadership of our company recognizes the needs of our community, our employees and opportunities for growth," White said.
   "Even though Carter County Bank has been in business more than 60 years, we don't operate the bank the same as 60 years ago, or even 10 years ago. We are able to anticipate coming changes and prepare for them. An example of this is a long-term training program we are involving all employees in."
   The training program, White said, will better equip each employee "to identity the financial needs of our customers and how to deliver that to them. 2003 was a good year for Carter County Bank, and 2004 will be even better for us and our customers."